Anonymous declares war on WikiLeaks in retaliation for “paywall”

Anonymous, the loose collective of hackers, dissidents, and the disaffected, roared into action in late 2010 to defend WikiLeaks, conducting denial-of-service attacks against MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal in retaliation for the payment processors' decision to block funding of the secret-publishing site. That support appears now to be at an end, with the hacking group outraged that WikiLeaks has placed its data behind a paywall.

WikiLeaks first implemented its paywall on October 10th. Most pages on the site were overlaid with a video and a banner imploring readers to "Vote WikiLeaks" and donate money to the site. Donating, sharing the video on Facebook, or tweeting about the campaign, would dismiss the overlay and allow access to the site. The overlay also disappears automatically after a period of time. After an immediate backlash on Twitter the overlay appeared to be removed within hours of its first appearance, but it returned on the 11th.

The reappearance of the overlay provoked an angry response from Anonymous representatives. The group claims to have been betrayed by WikiLeaks. The group's statement argues that numerous Anons have been charged or arrested over activities supportive of WikiLeaks, and that in contrast, no member of WikiLeaks staff has been charged or imprisoned.

Those charged include 14 Anonymous members who were indicted for the denial-of-service attacks of December 2010, and Jeremy Hammond, who provided WikiLeaks with e-mail pillaged from private intelligence company Stratfor. Those e-mails are now behind the WikiLeaks paywall, a move that "dishonors" and "insults" Anonymous. Anons "risk lengthy prison sentences" in their defense of WikiLeaks, but in return, WikiLeaks is "prostituting" the data that they have provided.

Concluding, the statement says that in the future the group will cease putting itself at risk to defend WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, and instead publish information through its own network of leak sites.

Justifying the call for donations, Assange wrote that the fund-raising was necessary to fund its "publishing and infrastructure costs," and further to fund its legal action against the payment processors. WikiLeaks' Twitter account also said that an overlay that allows you to share, tweet, or wait—or pay—isn't a paywall anyway.

100 Reader Comments

And that's why you should never trust someone unless you know why they're doing what they do. Because you never know when they arbitrarily decide that what you did was "wrong" by some standard and then turn on you for it.

And that's why you should never trust someone unless you know why they're doing what they do. Because you never know when they arbitrarily decide that what you did was "wrong" by some standard and then turn on you for it.

Anonymous committed a bunch of felonies on Wikileak's behalf, that almost certainly did nothing to help their problems, and now they're pissed Wikileaks puts up a paywall to support the suits and hosting they're running up expenses on? :S

Most of the time, Anonymous sounds like it consists of a bunch of whiny 15-year-olds. Which I guess might not be far off the mark.

Right click main overlay but not on the video, the wallet will do, then select This Frame ---->Remove this frame. After that right click and nuke (Remove this object) the remaining red background. Your content is now served.

Edit:

If you want to remove it permanently use this addon, RIP (Remove It Permanently) and do the same motions except after install select "remove this permanently" from the context menu otherwise you have to do it every time you reload the page.

Firefox actually has a built in ability to remove stuff from webpages. Just right click on what you want removed then select "Inspect Element" then in the drop down menu on the pop-up select "Delete node". Try selecting Inspect Element then select the left-most button on the pop-up or press Ctrl-Shift-I and move your mouse around, it will outline all the individual parts of the page you can remove. Click what you want then use the drop down menu like before and hit Esc to exit.

Nuke Anything Enhanced mainly adds to the point usability and the ability to click and drag many elements for selection among a few other things. RIP actually has a lot of expanded options.

Edit:

Regarding the material Anonymous gathered itself, if it wants that info to be completely free and accessible by everyone without hindrance, that should be honored. It's like respecting what is in someones will, they sacrificed for it, I don't see why their wishes for its dispersal should not be respected. They could easily get passed this and show an ounce of respect if they put the portions donated to them by Anonymous not behind the paywall/waitwall. Literally could be done in a few IT minutes, with that in mind there really is no excuse for Wikileaks.

Even better they should put a notice up saying this material has been donated with the stipulation that it is accessed always freely and without encumbrance by Anonymous, which is why it is not behind the paywall/waitwall like the rest of the site...but then that would be embarrassing for them and currently they are failing their trial by a small, little fire.

I get that WL is probably in dire financial straits after the harassment it has suffered from the US Govt, but this is a really dumb move.... It will piss off a lot of people, it will diminish the value of the site immensely, and it will give every critic they have all kinds of new ammo. And for what? I tiny amount of extra donations? People willing to donate already did - not very many will do it now. They will wait, use ways around it like Nuke Anything or just go to other sites for what they want.

This is difficult. I don't know which annoying, pretentious, arrogant, and otherwise "We're out to prove the government doesn't know what's best for you by showing you what's best for you"-attitude filled group I want to go down in flames more.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if they just wiped each other out to the point of obscurity? That way we wouldn't have to hear about this again.

The problem with being a group a like Anonymous is complete lack of a "mission statement". It's utterly hypocritical to claim to want to "fight the man" and "make the government stop telling us what to do" by basically handling the situation themselves.

For all this bravado that the groups get for fighting for internet freedom and whatnot, when the internet of the world becomes bogged down and plagued by paywalls, firewalls, extreme monitoring, censorship, and harsh punishment, I can promise you we'll know exactly who to blame for inciting it.

Anonymous committed a bunch of felonies on Wikileak's behalf, that almost certainly did nothing to help their problems, and now they're pissed Wikileaks puts up a paywall to support the suits and hosting they're running up expenses on? :S

Most of the time, Anonymous sounds like it consists of a bunch of whiny 15-year-olds. Which I guess might not be far off the mark.

L.

They said they're going to put up their own website, so I suppose the money has been put where your mouth is?

weren't the stratfor files saved onto "sabu's" (aka the fbi) servers before they were released? if so, wouldn't that make the files compromised? Sabu was working with the FBI at this time so the information in them could be just data altered, made up or in some cases completely erased by the government.

"Concluding, the statement says that in future the group will cease putting itself at risk to defend WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, and instead publish information through its own network of leak sites."

GOOD. No one wants their brand of "help" anyway. At least this way when they get arrested for their script kiddie antics, they won't be able to whine to Wikileaks about it.

If Wikileaks had exercised some editorial restraint, they'd be regarded as a revolution in journalism, they'd have commanded enough respect to keep the gov't from snuffing them out, and they wouldn't have attracted the Anonymous crowd. It's a shame. We need a Wikileaks-- a more responsible one.

Anonymous is really starting to piss off its supporters. It's not a paywall if you don't have to pay. Just what is so wrong with "tweeting" in order to get through to the site? I swear, this group is becoming nothing more than terrorists and they need to be put down like a bad dog.

weren't the stratfor files saved onto "sabu's" (aka the fbi) servers before they were released? if so, wouldn't that make the files compromised? Sabu was working with the FBI at this time so the information in them could be just data altered, made up or in some cases completely erased by the government.

From what I remember reading, they had sabu being the same old sabu. AFAIK he wouldn't have changed anything since he would have gotten caught out. Since that dump was assured to go public as it was.

Anonymous is really starting to piss off its supporters. It's not a paywall if you don't have to pay. Just what is so wrong with "tweeting" in order to get through to the site? I swear, this group is becoming nothing more than terrorists and they need to be put down like a bad dog.

"The reappearance of the overlay provoked an angry response from Anonymous representatives...The group's statement argues...Concluding, the statement says that in future the group will cease putting itself at risk to defend WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, and instead publish information through its own network of leak sites." Oh, the horror! That reads just like a Baader-Meinhof manifesto. Clearly terrorists. Yup. We should definitely take 'em out back and "Old Yeller" their asses pronto...

Wikileaks lost all its credibility for me when it stopped publishing valuable leaks and basically just turned into an organisation no-one ever really hears from except to chuck out a load of paranoid BS about Assange being set up.Also: It's Breanna Manning, not Bradley. Stop misgendering her.

What a stupid move by Wikileaks. It just is not the kind of site that can arm-twist people into supporting it. Those that want to donate already have, or would if a simple popup that can be dismissed asked.

Everyone else, this is just going to annoy and thin the ice it's already on.

What did you expect from wanna be frat boy hackers looking for kicks on a Saturday night? Some noble Robin Hood-like mentality? Anon are a bunch of loose cannons who need to be rounded up, and thrown in jail. They shoot for low hanging fruit and don't give a god damn crap about who they hurt to get it. It kind of reminds me of a few scenes from Team America: World Police.

Oh, the horror! That reads just like a Baader-Meinhof manifesto. Clearly terrorists. Yup. We should definitely take 'em out back and "Old Yeller" their asses pronto...

I'm all kinds of OK with this. I'd be more OK if Anon would 1. Shoot for things that aren't low hanging and within moderate easy reach. 2. Consider who they hurt when the pull their stunts. 3. Not just focus on the US. How many other countries are just as fucked up as us? 4. Get it through their thick skulls that secrets are a necessity in the real world. Or if secrets aren't necessary then please go ahead and expose everyone in the anon org because we don't need no stinking secrets.

And that's why you should never trust someone unless you know why they're doing what they do.

I thought you were talking about Wikileaks at first!

A sword cuts both ways.

I suspect Assange is doing this to raise funds so he can remodel his banging attic loft in the Ecuadoran Embassy. Sleeping on that cot and eating beanie weenies 3 times a day has to get old eventually.